Hurricane preparartion

[Veebyes2]

Who else has to leave the boat in the water, no matter what?

With a good chance of being a hurricane target early next week this is what will happen to the boat.

All canvas will be removed.

Normally the boat sits on the mooring held by a single 1" nylon bridle. Storm mooring setup requires an additional new 1" bridle with antichafing gear (old carpet) & a 5/8" chain bridle with chafing gear. Additional lines are run from the bridle eyes to the fwd spring cleats to help share the load.

Insurance requires the COD, chain on deck. It is preferable to have the load taken by the nylon bridle so the chain bridle is longer, only taking the load should the nylon bridle fail.

All of this should be done before the first puffs of wind arrive. Once you are done, get off the boat. There is nothing that can be done once the wind starts.

[DougSea]

Hey Veebyes,

Funny you should post that today since I just survived a 'surprise' Long Island Sound storm this past weekend and have been giving a lot of thought to the same issue.

Unlike many US power boaters I too live on a mooring. I have to admit that in the case of a hurricane I'd be doing everything I could to find a hideout but we get a fair number of Nor’easters through here and when the wind comes down the length of the Sound it can get quite nasty.

The storm that just hit us, which as far as I can tell was NOT Ernesto but a front that came down from Canada, had sustained winds in the 40-50mph range and 6+ foot seas (huge for the Sound) pounding us all day long. I'm on a 400lb mushroom with 20 feet of 3/4" chain and 20 feet of 1/2" top chain (nominal water depth is 5-13 feet). On top of that I have two 1" nylon pennants, with chaffing gear, going to my forward cleats. I survived without any problems but several boats at our Club ended up on the nearby beach, including one that took it's entire mooring with it! (We are required to pull our moorings out at the end of each season so they're not buried as deeply as we'd like and they can drag in the right conditions) I do like the COD idea and think I'll investigate it for later in the season. I would be concerned about not having any shock absorption if my nylon pennants failed. Do you do anything about that or is the chain a true 'last resort'? A larger concern for me is the actual mooring system itself failing. What's at the bottom end of your setup? The specs for my boat call for a 300lb anchor so I'm 33% oversized. After watching the effects of what would be considered a mere Tropical Depression I'm starting to wish I had a 500 down there! I also recently pulled a fellow member's boat off of the shore just two weeks ago where the mooring swivel had pulled apart. I'd never seen that before but it didn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling about my mooring.

Good luck in the coming storm season! Hope to hook up with you later in the month.

Doug

[chiefrcd]

Here are two really good articles on this subject....

http://www.yachtsurvey.com/huricane.htm

http://www.boatus.com/seaworthy/hurricane/default.asp

[Veebyes2]

The swivel is most likely the weakest link in the system. I am considering putting a length of chain in parallel with the swivel to act as a 'fail safe' just like the chain bridle is. Normally neither will take any load.

We don't use mushroom mooring anchor here. Can't say I'd have very much faith at all in a weight that is only a few hundred pounds. Once it has pulled out the boat is essentially free. At least with a substantial weight the boat still has to try & drag that around.

Here in Bermuda mooring weights are well & truly weights. In my storm mooring system the weight is a 1 1/2ton cylinder sleeve from a powerplant engine. Attached to this is about 12' of heavy anchor chain, like you would expect to see used on a large harbour tug or destroyer sized ship. Attacthed to this is the swivel then about 30' of 5/8" riding chain going to the bridles which are about 12' long.

All this totals approx 54' from the weight to the bit on the bow in water that, at normal high tide, is about 10' deep. It takes one helluva pull to straighten out all that chain. It makes a wonderful shock absorber under all but very extreme conditions.

Nothing s absolutley safe. This happened to my workboat which was on the very same mooring that my Albin is going on this weekend in preparation for Florence.




This boat is 6,000# lighter than the Albin but it SNAPPED a 1 1/4" nylon bridle. In this case the best that we can figure is that took a direct hit from a tornado, shot across it's mooring, pulled tight like you would breaking thread with your hands, & snapped the bridle. This happened after surviving at least 8 hours of hurricane force winds.

[AlMar]

Unfortuneatly, I learned that I need to work on my storm preperation a little better. We had about a 6-7 ft tidal surge from the edge of Earnesto, and I didn't shorten my spring lines enough. Beat up my swim platform a bit and tore off my new (yet untested) Exhaust extention. took out two supports from the swim platform, but looked like no transom damage, no leakage as best I can determine till I can get back down there. Bummed.
AlMar

[Mariner]

Fortunately the winter storms we get are not accompanied by storm surge, so the only concern is securing the boat in such a way that it won't break free or rub against the dock. We are in a marina in a bay that is protected on all sides, so even in the worst storms (up to 90mph wind) there is no appreciable swell or chop. The bigger concern is that one of the boats out on the buoys in the harbor will drag into the marina. For this reason, we string heavy lines across the entrances so that stray boats are stopped before they blow in and do damage.

[tomcat rio]

it is uaually possible to forcast with some certianty which side of the 'eye' your mooring will be on. winds blow counterclockwise abiut the eye. worst site is the right side ( winds velocity added to the 'cane's foward movement).
during gloria n '85 i ran out a second line in the direction of the worst anticipated winds ..
seemed to work.
also, it may be that as a rule a mooring may be a better bet than a dock.

[AlMar]

Good luck Veebyes2, Our latest track shows you in the bulls eye. With a little luck, you might get the west wall. Will be hoping for the best.
AlMar

[Veebyes2]

Well, the NHC has posted a new forcast & everyting has changed. Now, they are predicting a close pass to the East. I hope that they are right.

I'll wait for the morning forcast to confirm it but it looks like I am going to another mooring for this storm, the one that my workboat normally resides on. If the forcasters are correct it should give good protection from sea & wind as the storm passes & the wind direction shifts.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=bermuda&l ... &t=k&hl=en

I will be in the 2nd little bay in front of the cruiseship.

[chiefrcd]

That's it...that's all of Bermuda????? wow....had NO idea how tiny it is....good luck from here too.....I do not envy you, even a close miss could be disasterous.

[Elizabeth Ann]

I was wondering when this topic would start. I had to run down to Key Largo a few weeks ago to shutter the house for Ernesto, and prep 3 boats.

Of course the largest one's, a 40' Nunsuch (a blow boat), diesel wouldn't turn over for me. I tried to pull it out in the basin with my 20' center console and the boat wouldn't budge. My friend and I then had to pull the boat on lines while jumping property lines in order to get the boat in position to anchor. We had only one shot of getting this monster sail boat to hold anchor, if it didn't it was going to blow down the basin into our cement seawall/dock. Luckily it grabbed good bottom. After that I was jockeying around with my boat to bring it other lines to for points ashore. Finnally got that all wrapped up and then I had to deal with mine.

My boat get secured pretty easy. I drop a real heavy (45lb) Bruce anchor under the bow of the sailboat. I then motor to the point where I fix my starboard bow line secure bothe of these through the chock and to two individual cleats on the bow. I then reverse the boat as far as I can and bridle the stern with one line (jumping around the outboard) and bring the balance of 150' line back to the seawall behind me. Fixing the lines to two large cleats and then getting a few good wraps with the remain line around the stanchions of the davits that hoist me out of the water.

I lie about 15' off of a starboard side seawall and about 20-25' off of the seawall behind me. My bow (facing the opening of the canal) generally sits about 10' directly behind a set of mangroves which provide good security for my boat.

The third boat, another 20' center, is normally put on a trailer and water is normally added to the hull to give it some weight. This time we too a risk and left it sitting in its closed cell-foam support block and hooked to it's davits.

I've been through 6 storms now....hopefully I won't have to deal with many more

Good Luck in Bermuda!

[chiefrcd]

Good luck Vee....seems you're on the target screen...wishing you the best.

[Denis]

We all have weather issues from time to time to deal with. But I must say it's this time of year when the four seasons we have don't look so bad.

Paradise doesn't look so good to me during times like these. My sister lives aboard in Florida and barely has time to rebuild and repair during the year to get ready for the next hurricane season to come by and wreck everything all over again. That kind of destruction and worry is not my cup of tea. But she never misses an opportunity to rub my nose in it during our winter about how beautiful the weather is down there. A great place to visit but I would not live there for anything.
Good luck protecting you and yours during the coming storms. Denis

[chiefrcd]

Nice to see you survived and came through ok. Good job on the mooring hook up....that is a lot of torque on your bow. I think I'll make sure my pumps and switches are working......we had 5 to 6 foot surge in Earnesto but my homemade "bungee" dockstretchers worked fine and I never had to adjust the lines. We didn't have the wave action you had or the wind speed.

[jcollins]

Bermuda is cleaning up after a brush with Hurricane Florence that brought only minimal damage. The eye of Florence passed 52 miles to the west of the island at 10am Monday, bringing sustained winds of 80 mph gusting to 110 mph to the eastern end of the island. Higher winds likely occurred on the island's western end. The storm surge brought only minor flooding, and Florence's winds damaged just five buildings, one of them because of a rare tornado on Sunday afternoon. No deaths or injuries were reported, except to two pink flamingos at the zoo killed by falling branches. All but 6,000 of the 25,000 customers that lost power have had their power restored by this morning.